0 for 3 At Bunco

That’s my record. Just call me the big L-O-S-E-R.

When Ann, Thea, and Pam first proposed putting together a “Bunco group”, I thought: “Oh God, isn’t Bunco an irregular heart beat away from Bridge? What’s next…Pinochle? Quilting bees? Or, worse (huge shudder)…shuffleboard???”

Then I heard from ex-boyfriend Joe that his 30-something daughter, Renee, had joined a group in her neighborhood. What a relief! I figured if SAHMs (stay-at-home-moms—and, please note, I did not use the pejorative “soccer moms”) are gathering to play Bunco, it couldn’t hurt to get together with women my own age, right?

So, here’s how it works (at least with our group). Once a month, twelve of us meet at 6:00p.m. to share cocktails, munchies, and gossip. Then we play a round of Bunco, followed by more cocktails, munchies, and gossip. Round two comes next and after that we…no, you’re wrong. This time it’s cocktails, DESSERT, and gossip. (Are you sensing a pattern here? There’s a spot for round three on the scorecard doohinky, but so far, what with all the drinking/eating/talking, we haven’t been able to squeeze it in. Oh, well.)

Lastly, the winners are awarded honest-to-God cash. Not a lot, but hey—something tells me this Bunco craze is not about getting rich.

The game is rather simple (which is probably a good thing since our aptitudes are somewhat impaired right off the bat). I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say it involves rolling three die (yep—that’s the plural of dice) and looking for “ones,” then “twos,” and so on. (Not a game for Mensa candidates, but then with all the wine involved, probably about the right speed, intellectually speaking.) I don’t know if it’s the game itself or the wine ingested, but somehow the decibel level stays in the mosh pit range. Must be those screams of “TRAVELING” and “BUNCO” which, no doubt, cause the neighbors some justifiable concern.

Anyway, yours truly gets to host the December gathering. Time to re-stock the wine rack!